New York State assembly speaker: We might have to pass a law to block Bloomberg’s dumb soda ban

posted at 8:31 pm on June 1, 2012 by Allahpundit

In a sane world, there’d be no soda ban for the state legislature to undo. In a sane-ish world, you’d at least need the city council to enact a soda ban before it took effect. In the insane world in which we live, though, Mayor McCheese here and his health board can start controlling portion sizes in America’s biggest city on their own say-so, with a majority vote by state legislators needed simply to get us back to the status quo.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that if even true blue New York Democrats like Sheldon Silver are suddenly citing “1984,” the backlash to Bloomy’s nannyism is well and truly under way:

“We may be getting too close to Big Brother,” a clearly bothered Silver told The Post, adding that he’s considering legislation at the state level to stop the mayor’s plan to limit the size of sodas and other sugar-laden drinks sold in the city.

“I just think we ought to step back and look at the freedoms that we have been given in this country and reflect on them,’’ Silver said.

Even better than that is Bloomberg’s response, which conveniently puts one of the Democrats’ strongest contenders for the 2016 nomination on the hot seat:

On Friday, Bloomberg said he expected New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, to back his plan. Asked about Silver’s threat, Bloomberg crisply responded that “I don’t think that’s going to happen.

“I assume the governor is going to veto it.”…

“Nobody is taking away any of your rights,” Bloomberg said later in the broadcast. “This way, we’re just telling you ‘That’s a lot of soda.'”

Yeah, really? Andrew Cuomo, who’s been wooing the left by supporting gay marriage in NYS and wooing the center by getting serious about spending, is going to go to bat for the sort of cretinous dietary meddling that’s earned Bloomy the contempt of voters across the board this week? Jon Stewart beat up on him for it last night, as you’ll see below, and today none other than the New York Times dropped a disapproving editorial on him. Even Ronald McDonald is kicking him while he’s down. The only people who seem to be on his side are Bill Clinton and, of course, the editorial board of the right-wing New York Post. Wait, what?

Two clips for you here, the first from “The Daily Show” and the other, via Mediaite, of the “Red Eye” gang piling on. In lieu of an exit question, read Holman Jenkins on the deeper reason why you’re suddenly seeing more of a push to regulate people’s diets. When the state has to pay for your health coverage, don’t be surprised if it takes a greater interest in your health. Big government begets bigger government.

Slightly OT–but not really:
An additional thing that always bothered me about O-care (besides all of the obvious) is the power granted to unelected bureaucrats. That law is filled with, “The secretary (HHS) shall…”

How can it be that single elected officials and some commission set up by them can create law as they go? Seems more than a bit despotic, to me.

The Leftist’s approach to fighting obesity is just stupid. Typical command and control aproach so beloved by statists.

The best way, IMO, to at least start fighting obesity is by allowing a free market health insurance industry to price policies based in risk. Thus an obese person’s rates would be higher than a non-obese person. Their rates may even double those of a non-obese person because of all the health risks that obesity poses.

Maybe if lardbutts have to actually pay a price for their weight instead of being subsidized by the healthy they might decide to slim down. If not, at least they are funding their own lifestyles.

Maybe if lardbutts have to actually pay a price for their weight instead of being subsidized by the healthy they might decide to slim down. If not, at least they are funding their own lifestyles.

Or perhaps Big Cola could get off their profiteering asses and make diet cola or low calorie bottled juices. My God – they could even bottle water and put it in every convenient store in the country right next to the high calorie sodas. I bet Big Cola could even mark up bottled water prices more than high cal sodas and convince a few nitwits to buy it. The Feds really need to take over this free market. But only this tiny segment – nothing else…. ever

My contract has been flying up here for two months now teaching the 10th CAB the M Model Black Hawk and I’ve never seen a worse bunch of civilian interaction with a military community as here in up-state NY. Every place we fly to to train, (federally funded public fields) has, one by one, made so many noise complains we’re down to just a few we’re still allowed to use. And now they’ve taken to pointing lasers at our aircraft when we’re flying NVGs. Are your neighbors nuts?

Just posing a question here, in defense of “lardbutts” who are such a drain on insurance and healthcare, would those in “high risk” relationships be figured into the equation for their “lifestyle choices”. Just sayin’. I deal with many ill folk daily, and diabetes is not just a “fat people” disease.

Why do democrats believe their base is too stupid to make simple common sense decisions? Take for example, birth control. Democrats believe women in their base are too dumb to make a $10 a month birth control decision on their own.

Maybe the democrats are right? Maybe their base *is* too dumb to make simple decisions on their own?

In NY State we cannot burn fires larger than 3 ft by 3 ft. And we cannot burn during the “dry season” which I never even realised we had (in the Spring). Its fantastic. They publish the reminders in the local papers complete with a phone number to call if you want to turn in your neighbors. So no more too large bon fires on warm nights during the Spring. You can see where they would be concerned with this sort of behavior getting out of hand./sarc

The quickest way for NY State to stop this liberal-fascist BS is to pass a bill of state preemption. I’d be surprised if NY doesn’t already have such, in which case Bloomberg’s nanny-state nonsense is already improper.
Sell the idea to the statehouse on the premise of their power being usurped by Bloomberg and they’d pass it in a minute.

Same reason that Black Liberation Theology is allowed to call themself ‘Christian’. It’s not right, but creating some way to control who can or can’t use these labels would be much more dangerous than these occasional perversions.

Theophile, it’s the most unrealistic place I have ever lived. The denizens are either just into making money or having a good time, or a combination of both.

Real life takes a back seat to those interests. The average citizen is bombarded non-stop with messages, both subliminal and outright, that stress the importance of the four major materialistic impulses driving human nature: Love of the Praise of Men, Love of Money, Love of Physical Comforts, and Love of Violence with no countervailing messages allowed.

For people who do not know him, silver is a far left economic loon. He used to say that businesses losing money used that as a “loophole” to avoid paying taxes. His view was that in hard times, the state needs the tax revenue more than ever; so basicly, he wanted to tax revenues rather than profits. If Bloomberg cannot get the support of someone like Silver for a big government initiative, he is going to lose the debate.

Government can mandate portion size education in schools. That is fair game. They can limit the sale of goods on government property such as schools but limiting the sale of a legal product between private citizens in privately owned locations is pushing the public’s patience.

That is true but if a sales tax is too high, people buy elsewhere His idea was basically to change the income tax to something that did not rise and fall as much as income by going with what amounted to a revenue tax which would have the same effect as the sales tax. The problem is of course that if you have to pay a revenue tax, you have to raise your prices to cover it. A competitor outside of NY would not have that burden and steal business. Rather than making your state produced goods uncompetitive, the states need to use lean times when income tax revenue falls as an opportunity to prune excessive costs. Taxes that are imposed on money losing business (such as property taxes) can force them into illequidity with the loss of jobs, income tax revenue, reduced property values and thus less property tax etc.

BTW, it is not a “loop hole” in income tax law if you pay no tax when you have no income. That would be like saying that not paying sales tax when you do not buy something is a loophole in the sales tax law.

The best way, IMO, to at least start fighting obesity is by allowing a free market health insurance industry to price policies based in risk. Thus an obese person’s rates would be higher than a non-obese person.

Charlemagne on June 1, 2012 at 8:46 PM

Oh, but that’s DISCRIMINATION!!!

Seriously, Charl, crank up the volume on that idea and blast it all over the Internet. It’s the right approach.

Telling people how to live their lives is the very heart of Progressive politics. Every Progressive is driven by the need to assert their superiority over the average person, and to manifest that superiority by telling them how to live.

Seriously, how many deaths does large sodas cause in New York every year? And why target soda? Banning motorcycles would save lives. Imposing a sundown curfew would save lives. Banning sunbathing would save lives. Banning anal sex would save lives. Why doesn’t Bloomberg do any of those things? Ah but perhaps this is just the camel’s nose. If the population says yes to soda bans, you can’t tell me that isn’t going to embolden these statist scumbags to push themselves further and further into the tent.